My Talisman: Dangerous Adventures, #2

By Robby Robertson

MY TALISMAN: Book 2 of the Dangerous Adventures Series

Adventure Meets Magical Realism in the Himalayas

 

Still recovering from the Mount Rainier tragedy, Max yearns to return to the mountains. But little does he know, his next expedition will push him to the brink of an even greater test - one cloaked in ancient Himalayan mysticism. 

 

When Max's grandfather agrees to deliver a powerful relic to a remote monastery in Bhutan, Max seizes the chance to come along. At first, it seems like a straightforward trek through the treasured valley kingdom. That is, until Max crosses paths with Hillary, a fiery Scottish redhead as skilled at scaling rocks as she is at getting under Max's skin.

 

The two climbing hotshots instantly clash...until they realize they need each other's help to survive the unexpected dangers arising. Ruthless poachers, a corrupt Bhutanese official, and Chinese Special Forces have all set their sights on the sacred relic Max's grandfather carries - an artifact rumored to unleash incredible abilities for its bearer.

 

Worse still, a cranky Bhuddist dakini believes the talisman belongs to her alone. Now Max must do what he vowed never to do again - put his life on the line, this time navigating a realm where the magical and modern worlds perilously collide.

 

In Book 2 of the Dangerous Adventure Series, author Robby Robertson draws from his own treks through Bhutan to immerse readers in a high-altitude, high-stakes thriller meshing real-life adventure with Himalayan mystical lore. As Max pursues both the physical and metaphysical challenges before him, he must decide what he's willing to risk for his promise to return the relic to its home. 

 

When Himalayan mysticism becomes real, will Max and Hillary have the fortitude to make it down alive? Buy My Talisman now and embark on this supernatural survival journey!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis Robertson
• Release date: Jul 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223395164

Book preview

CHAPTER 1, GOT IT!

DOING NOTHING. SITTING on the bench during a game sucked. Coach said I’d made the team, but not which position. Worse, he’d started the big blonde dude in the position I wanted, left center mid. He’d even made him the team captain. I watched, trying to stay calm.

My fellow teammates on the bench were quiet, too. Coach had entered us in a Seattle tournament for older teams. Did he really think, just because we were premier, that our brand new team of fourteen-year-olds was gonna beat fifteen and sixteen-year-olds?

One of the other team’s giant fullbacks creamed Ty, my friend from behind. I screamed, Come on ref, and jumped to my feet. I glanced across the field and the stupid news people had their camera pointed my way. I quickly sat back down. It was bad enough I was sitting on the bench. The news guys didn’t have to make it worse by recording it for the whole world to see.

I glanced at the Channel 8 News lady who’d been hounding me since the Mt. Rainier climbing accident. All I’d done on the mountain was not get killed, and that happened over a month ago. Why was she still following me? Her camera man had already taken zillions of pictures. Now they had videos of me sitting on the bench. That should make a great TV story. Really impress everyone, especially the girls when school started in a couple weeks.

I thought about running across the field and asking the reporter, on camera, how their van was? Did they do any real damage when they crashed into the tree last week? Maybe they shouldn’t have been chasing Ty and me. Hah!

The ref blew his whistle and finally called a penalty on the other team. I decided day dreaming about laughing in the news lady’s face was stupid. I went back to worrying about the soccer game.

Near the end of the first half Coach slid in beside me and pointed at our blonde midfielder. Cedric’s good. He doesn’t show much leadership on the field, but he’s great with his ball control, especially his traps and passes. Things you need to focus on.

I nodded and muttered, Right.

Our team was still in the early stages of being formed. At least that was Coach kept saying. It didn’t change how badly we were getting beat on the field. Cedric and the others played hard and managed to have us even, one-to-one, at half. After a short halftime rest, and an even shorter pep talk, Coach gave me the captain’s black arm band and sub’d me for Cedric.

I played crappy.

The camera man taking pictures of every one of my miserable ball traps made me nervous. It was hard trying to control the ball, ignore the big dude with the camera, and still see the field. Then I awesomely screwed up, kicking the ball way out of bounds. One of their fullbacks had to sprint a mile to get it.

Ty ran over and demanded, What’s wrong with you?

Coach said for me to work on trapping and controlling the ball.

Dude, practice trapping next week. Ty grabbed me by the front of my jersey and pulled me to his face. Just play, now.

Fine. I peeled his hands off me.

The throw-in was on their ten yard line and our entire team moved way up the field, hoping to steal the ball and score. I realized their best striker, a real fast guy, was hanging back, almost even with our defensive line. Watch him, I yelled, pointed, and ran.

Too late.

Their throw-in had gone straight to the huge fullback who wheeled and kicked downfield over everyone’s head. I was at full speed. I still watched the ball sail past me to the breaking striker.

He had a one-on-one with our goalie. He scored.

We were playing a flat four-four-two and our four defenders had been out of position. I took a quick glance towards Coach. Cedric was talking to him and smirking. Pissed, I gave my defense a dirty look. They didn’t notice. They were too busy studying their feet.

Ty kicked off and our right forward immediately lost the ball. My right half turned their attack to the center as I charged in to back him up. Their forward faked to the left, went right and I tackled the ball, hard, through his left foot and out of bounds. Both he and I ended up on the ground. Him on top, his elbow in my ribs.

He screamed, Penalty. The ref ignored him.

I ignored the pain, rolled away, pivoted, and pointed at my players. We play in their faces. No room to breathe. Hard tackles. Got it?

A few nods, nervous looks, nothing else.

Got it? I yelled.

GOT IT! they screamed back. Ty the loudest.

The game changed. It turned out the other team could bump hard, nothing else. They had one good striker and no one that could trap, dribble, pass, or shoot if we played tight, fighting for every possession. We were bruised, but we won, three-to-two.

We didn’t win the tournament. Another premier team that had been together for three years did. However, they had to work hard to beat us two-to-one in the final. I wore the black armband and played left center mid the whole game. Cedric, playing forward, scored our one goal, an easy tap in. Ty had the assist with a beautiful cross.

CHAPTER 2, YOUTUBE

TY AND I met at his house after the game. The stupid long nosed Channel 8 News reporter still hadn’t figured out how I escaped by throwing my bike over our back fence. I hid my bike in Ty’s garage and we went inside. Ty took me straight to his room.

A new YouTube video had shown up. Another one about me! Maybe that’s why the Channel 8 News reporter wouldn’t give up. Why she kept hounding me and Mom.

This one’s crazy, Ty said.

Play it.

Up flashed a still picture taken from the last part of the Mt Rainier video, the one where I smiled so big and friendly like. A second later a song called We Will Rock You came on. I’d heard it before and liked it. It sure differed from Konrad’s song on the other video, that seemed okay…

The new video faded into a different picture. A face only, head-on picture of me grinning evilly, my eyes hard, narrowed, and focused straight ahead, like some kind of troublemaker. Sweat and dirt was smeared all over my face.

What? My jaw dropped.

Then it showed several short clips of me on my bike chasing that stupid Channel 8 reporter around her car a week ago. All through the new video Queen kept singing, You got mud on your face and, Take on the world someday. There were clips of me sliding around street corners on my bike as the reporter’s van chased Ty and me to the trail. It even showed a shot through the windshield of the van crashing into the tree.

Ty and I laughed.

The video ended almost where it started. Instead of just a pic, it showed a five-second clip of me riding up to the van in the school parking lot, grinning wickedly while Queen sang, Somebody better put you back in your place. The camera man caught me head on, or rather my sweaty face, coming straight at him. It didn’t take me long to decide I didn’t like the second YouTube video.

Ty wasn’t smiling, either. The camera dude edited me out of the bike clips. And you look like a crazy daredevil from some demented movie.

We watched it again, and then again. I looked worse each time I saw the, ‘put me back in my place,’ part. My teeth were clenched in a grin, my eyes sharp, focused, and crazy.

Look, Ty pointed to something written below the YouTube video. It said:

The world needs to find out who the real Max Grayson is. A hero or a troublemaker. If you have any video clips or photos of Max, please send them to the email address below. I’ll add them to this video, give you credit, and you can be part of creating YouTube’s most watched video of all time.

——[e-mail]

Oh God, I whispered.

Did this mean people were going to be watching me everywhere I went? Taking pictures no matter what I was doing?

CHAPTER 3, FROWNS

MOM GOT REALLY upset after driving home and finding the news van, once again, in front of our house. She blew up and said we’d go to Grandma’s. The news people wouldn’t dare bother us there. Gramps was a state superior court judge. She was wrong. The news jerks followed us.

Mom was still tense at dinner.

Grandma, sitting across the table from me, asked, Are the reporters bothering you at work, Joan?

Well, that—that non-lady-like Channel 8 News reporter snuck into City Hall Friday. She waited until I went to the restroom, took the stall next to mine, hung a microphone over the wall, and asked questions about Max.

What? My God, that was rude, Gramps sputtered.

That reporter is a true chienne, Grandma muttered. In any case, she smiled at Mom, William and I are glad to have you and Max stay with us, whatever the reason.

I wondered what chienne meant and started to ask—

Grandma raised her hand. I shut up, but decided to look the word up on my phone.

That’s close to what I called her, Mom said. But that reporter is going way too far. She glanced at Gramps, Max is right, the Mt Rainier climbing accident you two were in was a month ago. Time for the paparazzi to move on. Mom shook her head. Have they started pursuing you at the courthouse, William?

A little, but it won’t matter in several days.

That made me curious. Why won’t it?

Gramps pushed his chair back and took another sip of wine. Because I will be on a plane flying to Bhutan.

What?

I realize this is sudden. Gramps explained with a grin. But your Great Aunt Elizabeth inherited an eclectic collection of relics when her latest husband died. She found a huge, hidden vault behind the library in their house. It apparently contains artifacts from all over the world.

As crazy as finding a hidden vault sounded, it seemed like something that would happen to crazy Aunt Elizabeth. But what did that have to do with Gramps flying to… Where did you say you were going?

Gramps leaned forward. Bhutan is a tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas. It’s between India and Tibet. Elizabeth hasn’t traveled in Asia before, so she asked me to go with her. She needed help returning a supposedly rare talisman.

I almost dropped my fork. I mean, Gramps was going to the Himalayas! The mountains there were twice as high as Mt Rainier, and he was going with crazy Aunt Elizabeth?

Elizabeth attended a seance, or something equally ridiculous. She decided the right thing to do was to restore everything in the vault to where it had been taken from. Gramps scooted his chair back from the table. Returning the artifacts sounded reasonable. Elizabeth doing it by herself did not. So, when she asked me if I’d go with her on her first trip, I couldn’t refuse. Gramps grinned. Especially since it was to a remote monastery in Bhutan.

Wow. I glanced across the table at Mom to see what she was thinking. Her wide-eyed face looked like she’d forgotten me. That was good.

Grandma got up to go to the kitchen for dessert. I decided to try and get her to forgive my earlier bad table manners.

Would you like me to help?

Thank you, Max. You could pass out the dessert plates. Pausing, she added, William’s shoulder and bruised ribs are mostly healed. He’s using this trip as an excuse to go trekking again in the Himalayan Mountains. I’m humoring him.

I laughed and passed out Grandma’s shiny porcelain dessert plates. Finished, I sat back down.

Mom smiled at Gramps. It does seem like something honorable to do. But why doesn’t your sister just mail the artifact instead of you two going all the way to Bhutan?

When Mom said, All the way to Bhutan, I began thinking. Thinking how I would have begged to go two weeks ago. But not now. Now I had a brand new soccer team. And a premier team coach who demanded I make all the practices.

I thought of that, Joan. However, it turns out Elizabeth doesn’t exactly know who to return it to. I know this sounds funny, but she said it will be someone silently meditating at a remote monastery.

Mom looked dubious. You’re going to a strange, possibly dangerous place and you don’t know who you’re even supposed to give the talisman to?

Gramps shrugged. Bhutan is one of the safest places in the world to visit. No war, no terrorism, and not much crime of any type.

Mom looked like she didn’t believe him.

Bhutan is a small Buddhist country, about six hundred thousand people, that sits between India and Tibet. He smiled. Their king, a Buddhist monk, has even coined the phrase Gross National Happiness as being more important than the Gross National Product that all us western societies chase after."

Mom still wasn’t convinced. You said it’s in the Himalayas. Aren’t those mountains dangerous?

Gramps laughed. Maybe. But in Bhutan they are considered sacred, so no one is allowed to climb them. The trekking we do will all be on trails with small mountain ponies carrying our gear. We’ll not only have guides, there will be cooks and trail hands to set up our tents. Almost like a walk in the park. Then Gramps mentioned how he’d read that Tibetan Buddhism had influenced Bhutan’s art and stuff like that.

Mom relaxed. She’d always been interested in eastern art. I wasn’t. Desert sounded a lot more interesting than arty stuff.

Gramps touched Mom’s arm. You know Joan, it’s not like we are going on an Indiana Jones adventure. We’ll just be returning a little piece of metal. Something you might wear around your neck. However, Elizabeth and I will experience another culture and there will be several opportunities to visit very old monasteries. He glanced over at me.

Why?

Mom looked thoughtful. If you’re hinting Max should go, I’ll think about it. It sounds safe, and if he gets away from the newspeople long enough, they might lose interest.

I sat there horrified. I didn’t dare miss a soccer practice. Coach had made it very clear that we were all committed to three practices and at least one game every weekend if we wanted to be on the premier team. What should I—I noticed something different.

There was a new, strange smell. One like incense? In Grandma’s house? It was so subtle, I could barely detect it. It smelled something like Ty’s older sister’s room that time we visited her at Seattle University. I glanced at Mom and Gramps. They hadn’t noticed anything.

Gramps looked across the table at me and smiled. He really was thinking about taking me. I needed to tell him I couldn’t go. I stared down at the empty dessert plate as I thought about what to say.

A face stared back. It wasn’t mine! I glanced behind me. No one.

The round face was an Asian woman’s with a strange hairdo, dark eyes, and sparkling gold stud earrings. She raised a fingertip to her lips and gently, ‘Shhhhh’d,’ me.

I blinked.

Her large, serious eyes stayed focused on mine.

I looked all around the dining room, again. There was no Asian lady hiding anywhere. Had Mom noticed my reaction? Nope. She and Gramps were now happily discussing how there was just enough summer left for me to go and get back before school started. What should I do? I picked up the plate and looked under it. Nothing. I put it back down, very carefully. I needed to tell Mom I couldn’t go.

I started to interrupt them—but the Asian lady frowned at me and disappeared.

No way, I blurted.

What? Mom asked, giving me her surprised look.

I’d like to go. I just remembered Coach said we couldn’t miss any practices if we wanted to be on the team. So, even though I want to go with Gramps, I can’t.

Mom smiled. Maybe that won’t be a problem. I called him after the game. I told him how sorry I was the reporters bothered everyone. He agreed the newspeople were a problem.

I wondered where Mom was going with this?

Well, I’m sure if I call him and explain about the trip and how educational it’ll be for you he’ll be reasonable. When I add how the reporters will lose interest if you’re not around for a week, he can’t say no.

I shook my head. I don’t know, Mom. Coach hadn’t ever been reasonable. And why was Mom being so helpful about me going? It sure didn’t seem like her.

Mom shrugged. We’ll just have to ask him. After a moment, she and Gramps went back to talking about arrangements for the trip.

I wanted to shout, "No way!" But the face in the plate was back, and the Asian Lady’s frown had changed to a scowl. A really mean scowl. What in the world was going on? I thought about showing Mom or Gramps. But Mom was already stressed, and if the face disappeared, or I was actually imagining it, well Mom would really freak out.

I’ll call Max’s coach after we finish dessert, William, Mom said. Max loves doing things with you. With Max out of town, it would put an end to the stupid television news and YouTube mess he’s gotten himself into.

Grandma brought a new, special dessert out. Mom and Gramps happily ate her blackberry and cherry cobbler and talked about all the arrangements that would be needed for me to go. I ate quietly and watched my dessert plate. Grandma watched me.

CHAPTER 4, THE TALISMAN

MOM HURRIED TO Gramps study to call Coach after we finished eating. She came back even faster, smiling big. Your coach said no problem, as long as you make one small promise. It turns out he will be gone himself, on a vacation he planned last year. He’s going to have someone else sub as coach at the practices while he’s gone. So you won’t miss that much. She grinned happily at us. Just think how peaceful it will be with those stupid newsmen gone.

I didn’t know whether to be happy, or… "What’s the